Sheep Industry Files
Anti-Import Petition

WASHINGTON —(AP)— The U.S. International Trade Commission is being asked to recommend tariffs and quotas on imported lamb meat, blamed by American sheep producers for hurting their industry.

Lorin Moench Jr., president of the American Sheep Industry Association, said the U.S. market has become a "relief valve for excess lamb from major lamb-producing countries" due to the Asian financial crisis, the openness of the U.S. market and the European Union's quota on lamb imports.

The American Sheep Industry Association, along with several sheep producers, feeders, processors and packers, filed a petition for import relief with the commission last Wednesday.

The petition asks the commission to recommend to the White House a four-year period of relief in the form of increased tariffs on imported lamb and a quota.

"The imports are having such an impact that you have to speak up, voice your disapproval and put your name on the dotted line. We're losing too many of our producers," said Bill Brennan, plant manager for Iowa Lamb Corp., one of the co-petitioners. Based in Hawarden, Iowa, Iowa Lamb Corp. is the largest packing house in the nation dedicated solely to lamb meat.

Wednesday's petition triggers a six-month investigation by the ITC. A hearing on the so-called Section 201 trade action is expected in January 1999.

According to ASI, imported lamb has increased in the last five years from 15 percent of the American market to nearly one-third of all lamb consumed in the United States during the first half of 1998.

More than 95 percent of the imports come from Australia and New Zealand, the association said.

Prices paid to American producers fell during the 1998 Easter/Passover season, the market's traditional peak, reaching a four-year low of 60 cents per pound for slaughter lambs, the industry said.